Day 128

I'm getting the feeling that every day is going to be a long day.  It just occurred to me that it's still Monday.  For some reason just a little bit ago I was thinking that it was Wednesday or Thursday.  No... still Monday.  Oh goodness.


So this morning in finance we just talked about the exam and went over a few problems.  Then Mr. Fry gave us a sheet of additional problems that we could work.  That about sums up that class.  In life contingencies, we talked about the exam we had just taken on Friday.  I did far better than I imagined.  It appears that the problems I actually did (except for 1) I did correctly.  So I did, in fact, pass.  I definitely didn't think that I had.  But he was very generous with his partial credit.  So he asked if we had any questions about the exam, and I state that, in general, I felt as though the questions on in the book did not accurately reflect the material on the exam.  The basic issue was that for the last half of the exam, we were to determine values of various life insurance policies given a "life table."  However, only two of the problems in our book used life tables to determine values for insurance policies.  But half our exam was based on this.  So I explained to him that, while the practice was there, it wasn't enough to prepare us for the type of questions on the exam.  My defense was that when we study for the MLC exam, we will be taking many many  practice exams that give us a general idea of what to expect on the actual test.  He was very sympathetic.  In his mind he had given us a very straight forward test.  As we were talking, I think the light bulb came on and he realized that his  30+ as an actuary gave him a very distinct advantage when solving the problems.  So after class he thanked me for pointing the issues with the test out to him.  This is the first time he's taught the class, so he really had no idea what to expect.  Now, I am very appreciative of what he's doing.  He is doing his best to prepare us for a very very difficult test (and when I told him about how we were under-prepared I thanked him for trying to prepare us for the MLC exam by giving us a difficult test).  But he was very grateful that I was able to explain specifically what needed to be improved upon for the next exam.  So... we'll see how that goes.


After finance I had lunch.  I forgot salad dressing so I had to go to Chick-filet to get some dressing.  I like mine better.  After lunch Adrian stopped by my office and we discussed the statistics homework.  He went with Kathryn and Erica and me to see Dr. Begum about the homework.  We wanted to get it pushed back to Monday because we just won't have time to complete all the homework assignment and study for the exam on Wednesday.  She was very willing to push the homework back, but she (like Mr. Dean) had no idea that the homework was difficult and was taking a long time.  I'm learning two things: 1- our professors don't get much feedback about the classes they teach and 2- apparently most of my peers had taken some statistics course during undergrad that was incredibly similar to this one.  The class I took talks about bits and pieces of this... but most of it is new for the first time.  So it is comforting that I have a legitimate reason for feeling so lost most of the time, because most of them (even after having taken such a course) are still lost.


In other news, apparently my friends believe that describing a crippled puppy as "stumpy" is perfectly acceptable, but actually naming a crippled puppy "Stumpy" is mean.  This I do not understand.  I find both to be unacceptable, but by logic it seems that finding stumpy to be an acceptable adjective would therefore necessarily permit Stumpy to be an acceptable name.  It appears that I am incorrect.


Anyhow, stats went.  I think we talked about transformations of variables for distributions of two variables instead of one.  I really don't know what that means.


After stats I came back and had dinner.  I played Team Fortress with Miles for a little bit while I ate, but then after very little time had passed I started studying.  Bleh.


It occurred to me earlier today that if I take all the actuarial exams, I will have put in at least as much time as most people studying to get their PhD.  They say it takes 6-8 years to take all the actuarial exams, which is longer than many PhD programs.  The idea is that actuaries have taken all their exams by about their 30th birthday.  Roughly.  So it seems that undergrad actuarial science majors have a better chance than grad students at getting internships because they're seen as having more years ahead of them with more time to take the exams.  So...you know.  Yay.


I went over to Tim's house to study finance.  We worked through a lot of concepts.  I feel decently about it all... but I'm just very tired.  So I'm going to go to bed now.  Good night.